left: Ballot proposed by the Mayors council – right: version “amended” by the Province

It appears that skeptic people on the outcome of the said referendum could be right: The Province reworded the referendum:

Out is the PST, in is a new whole tax which could be as different to the PST as the PST is to the GST. The exact wording is

A new Metro Vancouver Congestion Improvement Tax would be applied
as a 0.5% sales tax on the majority of goods and services that are subject to the Provincial Sales Tax and are sold or delivered in the region

It is not hard to fathom that the car dealer will escape to the “Congestion Improvement Tax”, the gas station probably too…

Anyway, it looks to open a whole new can of worm generating ever more red tape (and damaging the main argument in favor of the sale tax: equal on a broad tax base)…That is not good!

The name of the tax: “Metro Vancouver Congestion Improvement Tax”

Do transit investments “improve” congestion?

That is a meme repeated ad nausea: I am not sure people sitting in their cars on Oak bridge share this view.

Let’s dispel the myth: Transit investments never “improved” congestion, and will not magically start to do it tomorrow. they improve mobility choice, and people movement (allowing the economy to continue to growth): that is already a lot, but cars and trucks will still sit in traffic as they do right now.

The tax is certainly misnamed: the only known way to reduce congestion is road pricing.

LRT vs Skytrain?

With the referendum, we could have thought the very nasty debate on technology choice as behind us: Not at all! The Province clearly re opened it:

I had previously noticed many cautious words from the Province such as “The Province will contribute on transit project on a case by case basis, provided a strong business case exists”. When comes transit in Surrey, a recent joint study MOTI/Translink reads:

The BRT and RRT [skytrain]-based alternatives were most cost-effective overall in achieving the project objectives due to greater relative benefits (RRT) or lower costs (BRT). LRT 1 and LRT 4 [chosen by the mayors] performed the worst in this account, due to higher costs and minimal benefits, respectively”

Today the Province changed not only the tax but the wording of the suggested investments:

Out is the Surrey LRT. In is an unspecified “Rapid Transit” link,

For good measure, same apply to Vancouver (but here there is a strong business case for a subway)

…Number of B lines becomes unspecified too..

Suddenly, lot of clarity, on what we gonna pay and what we gonna get for the money, has disappeared…that doesn’t bode well either.

Referendum vs Plebiscite?

Curiously enough, the referendum is replaced by a plebiscite: the words could be interchangeable..or not. An apparently accepted definition (pretty much as worded by Prime Minister Mc Kenzie in 1942) is:

“The plebiscite is an expression of opinion by the people on a general course of action proposed by the government. The vote is not legally binding on the government, although there may be a political and a moral obligation to respect the result.”

It doesn’t matter the viewpoint, you see only vagueness on every aspect of the renamed “Transit plebiscite”: That is not necessarily the good recipe to get the “Yes” vote “out”.

On another hand, the Mayors council doesn’t need a referendum/plebiscite to increase the Translink property tax, so it is not like if it was no “plan B” to finance Transit in the region.

December 17, 2014

It could be odd to compare a supra national organization to a local transit agency, but have a close look

The European Union organization
We just synthesize below the bodies and mechanisms to generate European laws:

European Union laws are proposed only by the commission, which is appointed by the European governments. (*) since 2014 the European parliament needs to approve the appointment of the Commission president.

The Commission is the main executive European body, but it is also the body drafting laws. A specificity of the EU legislative bodies (The “Council” and the European Parliament), is that they don’t have legislative initiative right: they can only approve/disapprove bill of law proposed by the commission.

The reason

The European Union framers idea was to avoid a too political European Union, and to have a more technical one to go above the different parochial (nationalist) interests toward the greater good. One has too remember that this structure has been built on the ruins of an Europe devastated by 2 world wars, and include countries of very different size (from Luxembourg to France).

The drawback

It is on of the reason why the Commission is often presented by the medias and local European governments, as a undemocratic/unelected body vested with too much power and not enough control. It is an easy scapegoat for all the local angst,and local governments make very good use of it. The areas of competence of the European Union vs the states are not well defined either (many are shared), so it also helps to fuel confusion.

The Commission has a relative small budget, and by the nature of the Europe itself, language barriers…, has little way to defend itself.

The Practice
Obviously, in practice, the thing work much differently:

The state governments jealous to preserve their influence, tend to appoint relatively transparent commissioners

The Commission will not put forward bill of law without having insurance to have approval of the council, since it is not in its interest to work for nothing, and obviously all laws are approved by representative bodies, and need to get “super majority” at the council (council of state government representatives)

The Translink organization

It looks like it:

The Translink governance: the mayors council appoints the Translink board of directors, and basically need to approve all the Translink management choice, including executive remunerations

Beside the bicameralism, Not too much difference with the European Union in term of responsability and accountability…

The reason

There are not much different of the ones presiding to the EU governance structure: a too parochial and politic Mayors Council. Local interests were taking precedence over the greater good and was putting the regional transit on a wrecking course. The wreckage occurred with the Canada line which the council of Mayors initially refused to approve, (and then later made sure it was built to a cost vs meet objective)

The Province needed to step in, what it did, and reorganized Translink, to strip down the Mayors of political nuisance power on Transit matter. The framer idea, was to have an apolitical body able to submit plan, conceived for the greater good, with all choice technically motivated rather than satisfying political expedient

Elected representatives (The mayors council) of course still need to approve the major decisions, especially Transit fare increase, tax increase, major investment, budget increase…in short: Translink is still fully accountable to the Mayors council

In Practice

The Mayors council never really accepted this type of organization, and quickly painted Translink as a undemocratic/unelected body vested with too much power. The board of directors, they themselves appoint, doesn’t escape to the finger pointing: A pure exercise at deflecting popular angst has been unfolding since 2004

Translink which has not the popular legitimacy to defend itself is put in a weak position: Strong voices usually disappear quickly (Michael Shiffer, Thomas Pendergraast… all left, after a brief but remarked interlude at Translink).

The appointed directors, as competent as they could be, seem to be chosen essentially for their ability at sitting passively in meeting and avoiding the medias. So it really looks like the council of Mayors has spent many effort to transform Translink as a puppet of their own, they can deflect angst on it.

However, virtually all Translink management choices, including its CEO compensation,are approved by the Mayors council. Plan and choice presented by Translink are obviously drafted to get the mayors council adhesion:

The Mayors express displeasure at the Burnaby Gondola: Translink put it on the shelve in despite of a positive business case which could have improved the Translink financial sheet

The Mayors want to reduce the property tax, without warning: Translink comply with it and put an alternative plan (remember, it is normally up to Translink to put forward such proposal, potentially devastating for its operation, not the Mayors!)

The June 2014 Translink restructuring

In despite of the above, and recognition that the Translink governance is a good model working better than its Canadian peers, the Regional Mayors ares still discontent of lacking some power: A slight restructuring has happened last June, providing more power and money to the mayors. They essentially inherited of all the competency the Translink commissioner used to enjoy (including a specific budget to exercise it).
They can also sit on the Board of directors, what does Richard Walton. A controversed step because as said the Burnaby Mayor Corrigan, the fear is that “What’s going to happen is the mayors’ council is going to be blamed for each and every thing that happens at TransLink.”!…and a reason why they had declined previous similar offers

However, the new legislation, explicitly mentions the need for Translink to consult the Mayors council to draft its plan (what was obviously a common practice required to work toward its endorsement before). The Province seems to have stood firm, to keep Translink as the body putting plan forward.

The referendum could have detracted a bit that, since the Mayors council has made sure to use their new gained authority to inprint its exclusive leadership on the 10 years plan: some implementation choice are more politically grounded that technically justified… However the very principle of the referendum is politicizing the issue, so the mayors can’t be blamed too much for that, since they have to sell the plan directly to the public in a very short time frame

“Why do we trash TransLink?” asked Gordon Price: A great part of the answer probably lie above, but another part of the answer is in the lack of clearly defined Translink responsibilities which pervade as a lack of accountability too:

Transportation responsibilities

The Transportation responsibilities can be described in 3 military terms; Strategy, tactic and operation; which can be illustrated as it:

The different layer of responsabilities

The Strategy essentially defines the political goals to achieve. Transportation model, land use model, all contribute to this goal.

The Tactic essentially defines the mean used to achieve the strategic goal- It is at this stage line on the map are transformed in technical choices – It is essentially an implementation responsibility and that should also include the fare choice (level of subside is a political choice)

The Operations design the day to day operations. That is running the buses and trains,and try to run it in an efficient manner.

One of the main issue is that Translink is both an horizontal organization, overseeing transit and roads, but also a vertical one defining the strategy, the implementation, and running most of the operations, ( thru subsidiaries…but existing largely in name only).

That infers a large corporation, hence expensive to run, and probably create too much exposure for a single body:

A trouble on the Canada line will see angst directed at the Canada line management, the very discrete InTransit BC, not Translink

An operational problem on the skytrain will see angst directed at Translink and not BCRTC (The skytrain operator)

The public is probably right: the BCRTC president, Doug Kesley, was Translink COO few months ago, similar observation could be made with the CMBC management….lot of permeability between all the Translink subsidiary

A suggestion

There is no much fundamentally wrong with the Translink governance model: It is a good model shielding implementation and other important technical study and choice of political interference and still providing a good level of accountability, and there is no doubt that Translink critics, such as Jordan Bateman, benefit of this good level of accountability and transparency, however:

The board of directors relevance could be improved, with direct appointees by the Board of Trade, the Port authority, and other relevant organization recognized to have vested interest in the region transportation

For this reason, the Province should also be represented to the board of Directors

I could also welcome the appointment of some individual, such as Gordon Price or Jarret Walker

Translink responsabilities need to be redefined

It is clear enough that the “strategy” level is a political one: it shouldn’t be the role of Translink to define the Regional Transportation strategy: this thing needs to be defined by a body also overseeing other regional aspect, and mainly land use planing: Metro Vancouver is the natural forum for this

That said, it is clear also that implementing a Transportation strategy, which infer the choice of transportation mode and other technical matter, as well as overseeing operation, is a complex matter which need a sui generis body: That should be the main role of Translink. Because its role is to implement a strategy defined by Metro Vancouver, it is only natural to have Translink reporting to the Metro Vancouver board. a dedicated Mayors’ council on regional transportation is just a distraction, and an impediment to the good march of Transit and more generally transportation in the region

Operations should be clearly separated of Translink: Translink still should oversee its network operations, but not be directly involved in them: Each subsidiaries and contractors should provide an operational plan on a ~5 years term, meeting performance and objective defined by Translink. Translink then should audit its different operators.

Eventually, tendering part of the network operation, or some route on the model of the Shuttle buses, could be considered too.

Added on December 22, 2014Interlude

Below is a video illustrating how the CEO of the Hong Kong Transit agency, MTRC, functioning as a corporation (including listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange) is treated by the Legislative Commission:

December 8, 2014

The Metro Vancouver mayors council plan, proposed to a 2015 referendum, calls for $765 millions of expenditure on the Expo an Millennium line over the next 10 years. This could result in an increase of 50% of the vehicle fleet and skytrain operating cost: Are those investments justified or just an extravaganza?

As of today, the Skytrain comfortably copes with the demand, thanks to the recently added vehicles in the years leading to the 2010 Olympic games, and should be able to serve the Evergreen line without hiccups, considering the expected addition of 28 cars. In fact the vehicle productivity (measured as rider/vehicle) is 20% lower from its 2008 peak. When the average increase in vehicle capacity is considered (83 passengers, before 1999, to 108 passengers in 2014), Skytrain vehicles productivity is at a 20+ years low (see our spreadsheet for detail).

To define the fleet requirement, Let’s see what the future ridership is planned to be:

[1] doesn’t give explicit peak hour numbers for year 2021, but we can still infer them from [1] and [5] for the year 2021:

Maximum passenger per hour per direction (pphd).

without Broadway extension

2021

2041

Millenium Line

8400

10000

Expo Line

16000

23100

with a Broadway extension

2021

2041

Millenium Line

10400

12600

Expo Line

16000

19000

Thought the above projections could not have factored other transit investments such as the Surrey LRT or B lines, as contained in the Mayors council plan [3], they are not expected to significantly affect the peak pphpd requirement on either the Expo or Millennium lines.

The actual skytrain fleet is composed of

150 MK1 cars.
The 114 oldest car are currently refurbished, for an estimated amount of $38million [2], providing them an additional 15 years life span, so they are good to go up to ~2027

108 MKII cars + 28 cars to be delivered in 2016 (Evergreen line).

The below table illustrates the usually used consists and associated train capacity:

4 car MKI train

332 passengers/train

6 car MKI train

498 passengers/train

2 car MKII train

256 or 264 passengers/train

4 car MKII train

512 or 528 passengers/train

We place ourselves in a scenario post Evergreen line:

The Expo line operates from WaterFront to King George (one branch),and to Lougheed (other branch): that is also called split-tail service by [2]

The Millennium line operates from VCC to Douglas college

The 3 skytrain lines, after integration of the Evergreen line spur

Thought we are aware that Translink is considering to extend the Expo branch from Lougheed to Production Way, we are not considering it for the below reasons:

It doesn’t make good use of the skytrain capacity due to the poor expected ridership on the considered section

It creates operational and reliability challenge, due to the meddling of the Expo and Millennium operation

It significantly limit the capacity of the Millennium line: this one could be not required in the short-term, but discontinuing a service people get use to consider as granted, could prove to be troublesome in the future

2021 Rolling stock requirement

As per [2], we assume a minimum 93s headway and a 87mn round trip on the expo line and 78mn return trip on the Millenium line. Due to the ill designed Lougheed station, headway below 108s on the Millennium line could be challenging.

The extension of the Millenium line up to Arbutus increases its round trip by 15mn [1], and increases the pphpd requirement to meet by 2021, from 8000 to 10400.

We don’t consider short trains such as Commercial (or Metrotown)-WaterFront. They could still be used to reduce the fleet requirement or increase the spare ratio. Such strategy is not without issues [6].

No ext

Broad. ext

Expo line

Desirable (2021)

headway

93s

114s

114s

120s

train requirement

56
(31 4xMKII cars
25 6xMKIcars)

46(21 4xMKII cars
25 6xMKIcars)

469 5 cars MKIII consists
12 4xMKII cars
25 6xMKIcars)

4415 4 cars MKIII consists
26 4xMKII cars
1 6xMKIcars)

capacity (pphpd)

19,900

16000

16000

16000

Millennium line

Desirable (2021)

headway

150s

120s

108s

train requirement

32(32 2xMKII cars)

40(40 2xMKII cars)

52(36 4xMKI cars
16 2xMKII cars

capacity (pphpd)

3,000

6,000

8,000

10,600

Total

Desirable (2021)

train requirement

150 MKI cars
136MKII cars

150 MKI cars
136 MKII cars

150 MKI cars
136 MKII cars9 5 cars MKIII consists

150 MKI cars
136 MKII cars15 4 cars MKIII consists

~10% spare ratio

6 5xcars MIII

8 4xcars MIII

The Broadway subway extension will involve at least the command of 7 new train consists (6 train consist to operate the segment + one spare)[1] which will be accounted as part of this project. So the extra rolling stock required to continue to meet the demand on the Expo and Millennium line in the next 10 years is:

Without Broadway ext.

With Broadway extension

15×5 car MKIII consists

16×4 car MKIII consists

$262.5 millions

$224 millions

the refurbishing of the remaining 36 MKI cars, estimated at $10 millions from [2] need to be added.

In the case of the Broadway extension, all other Expo line upgrades are already financed (federal gas tax subsidiary) and continue to carry on on schedule, so that the non yet financed cost is ~$240 millions (some minor egress improvement could be required here and there, especially on the Millennium line))

Potential additional storage requirement should be seen in the context of the Broadway extension project: The Coquitlam vehicle storage facility should apriori be expanded to accommodate, with the Burnaby OMC, the fleet up to 2031 [7].

Regarding the 5 and 4 cars consists

If the Broadway extension is not built, the expo line will require 5 cars train consist before 2041, so it eventually makes sense to consider to start to add such trains on the rolling stock from now, but that supposes also ancillary cost to adapt the line and the OMC, to longer trains it could also require upgrade of Waterfront and Stadium station, which are not yet funded. It requires also an upgrade (stage 3) of the propulsion power to enable the delivering of 25,000pphpd [6].

If the Broadway extension is built, there is no need for 5 cars train in the next ~30 years or the usual lifespan of a train: 4 car trains (MKII and MKIII generation) will be able to absorb the 2041 demand, and the line is already prepped out (or upgrade funded).

In any case, what should be ordered are trains able to maximize the capacity at a given length: The idea to order 3 cars train is a flawed one, since it doesn’t allow to realize the maximum train capacity, but more importantly prevent platform door installation (due to train assymetry making train doors location not always the same):

It is more than time to order rolling stock which will:

enable future platform screen, since such installation allow much greater system reliability than the current passive track intrusion detection model.

minimize dwelling time

That should imposes constraint on the train door location for any future procurement.

4 car MKII train

512 or 528 passengers/train

4 car MKIII train

~540 passengers/train

3+2 car MKIII train

~670 passengers/train

5 car MKIII train

~680 passengers/train

~2030 Rolling stock requirement

Circa 2030, the original 114 MKI car will reach their end of life, as well as the 60 MKII (ordered for the opening of the Millennium line). we place ourselves in a scenario where those cars are still in service, and before a decision is done regarding their eventual life extension or replacement

By that time, the Expo line should be able to carry ~18,000pphpd and the Millennium line, ~12,000pphpd (number inferred of both the 2021 and 2041 projection). The rolling stock could be assigned as below:

Expo line (2030)

Millenium line (2030)

headway

108

150

train requirement

4826 4xcars MKIII consist + 22 4xMKII cars

37
25 6xMKI cars + 12 4xMKII cars

capacity (pphpd)

18,000

12,000

Considering a ~10% spare ratio, 36 new 4 cars train should be ordered by 2030. More likely 30 in the next 10 years with an option to order 6 more circa 2025. That includes the 7 train part of the Broadway extension project, so the effective requirement could be 29 4 cars train – or 23 train in the next 10 years period, that is ~$320M (with a 6 additional 4 cars-train option to exercise ~2025)

Furthermore,

the possible availability of second hand MKI car (from the Scarborough RT or the Detroit People Mover), and potential acquisition for refurbishing should be considered

the decision to go with 4 or 5 car consist order should be reexamined in the next 10 years, in light of the ridership evolution

The above doesn’t account for 27 vehicle to be procured between 2025 an 2029

In the light of the previous sections, this seems to be an inconsiderate expense to

address purposeless goals; such as doubling the capacity of the Expo line by 2020 (the main reason for the mayors plan extravaganza)

and still failing to address basic requirement, such as the 10,000 pphpd ridership on the Millennium line in the case of the Broadway line (the Mayors council’s plan consider only 8,000).

The Mayors council’s plan implicitly assumes 3 cars train: This is a bad idea as we have seen before

A fundamental reason to put the Broadway subway as the top priority transit investment is to spare the considerable expense to upgrade the Expo line to meet the ~23,000pphpd 2041 demand; which could happen only on the very short section Commercial-Stadium:

A Broadway subway will reduce the Expo line demand at ~19,000pphpd: something achievable as of today, and could save ~$300 million of investment on the Expo line, according to the council mayors numbers [8], and associated operating cost, otherwise necessary.

The fact that the passenger load is much more balanced along the Expo line, in the case of a Broadway extension, make a much better use of the line capacity.It is still possible to operate short train in the other case, between Commercial (or Metrotown) and Waterfront, but it doesn’t come without issues ([6]), such as passenger bunching or platform crowding (due to passenger waiting for the expected less crowded short train)

[8] That is the difference between the Mayors council plan, $765M and our ball pack numbers, $320 for rolling stock expansion/upgrade and ~$150M for infrastructure upgrade, including storage/OMC expansion: Those numbers are in fact consistent with [6]

November 3, 2014

Some numbers extracted from the Translink GTFS feed[4] (for the day of Sept 5th, 2014), for the 2km segment between Hasting and Broadway. The current average speed is ~11.5km/h, could be increased to ~15km/h with a bus lane…or reduced to ~9km/h according to the tradeoff done to implement bike paths

number of #20 runs: 304 (but I counted only 276 between Broadway and Hasting) requiring a minimum of 19 vehicles in revenue service [3]

4.5meters wide bike+bus lanes, with bus keeping in its lane at bus stop. It features transit signal priority and right turn specific signal to protect both transit and cyclists – Transit average speed is estimated at 15km/h

This bus lane, featuring clearly marked corridors (protected in one direction) and transit priority signal, suggests that average speed typical of BRT or urban LRT could be achieved: that is ~20km/h.

That said, noticeabily because the stop are closely spaced, an average speed of 15km/h could be more realisticaly and conservatively achieved:

That is roughly the average speed of the bus 20 outside the Commercial Drive segment.

Annual operating cost

average speed

Average time

Annual operating cost

9km/h

13.3mn

$1.9M

11.5km/h

10.5mn

$1.5M

15km/h

8mn

$1.2M

20km/h

6mn

$0.9M

The potential operating cost saving is in the tune of of $300,000 to $600,000/year.

On the opposite, a configuration of Commercial Drive with a single lane of traffic per direction to preserve parking [2], negatively impacts the speed of the bus, as we have seen before:

Commercial street redesigned as per StreetForeveryone group – Transit average speed is estimated at 9km/h

Similar configurations, be on Davie or Robson, suggest a reduction of the average speed to ~9km/h; That could increase the route 20 operating cost by $400,000/year:

the bus+bike lanes proposal is conductive of $1 Million in operating cost saving versus a proposal favoring street parking over transit.

A bus lane + traffic signal priority, allows an increase in the bus schedule reliability: lay over can be reduced accordingly, increasing the operating saving

Operating cost is only part of the picture:

Capital cost

the slower a bus route is, the more buses are required at same frequency/seat capacity:

The steeper the slope of a line, the faster the travel, and the sooner a vehicle return to its orgin, ready to do another run. the number of starting lines in between represent the required number of vehicle – credit Melbourne on Transit

The bus requirement is compounded by two conflating issues:

Demand is at its greatest at peak hour, but

transit speed is also at its slowest at peak hour

.

On the route 20, afternoon peak hour traffic cost ~4 buses:

number of vehicle in service on route 20 according to the time of the day (graph for friday Sept 5th, 2014)

A bus lane, making transit more immune to traffic congestion, allows to reduce drastically the peak hour buses requirement (in our example, the average speed maintained at ~15km/h, vs 9.5km/h currently in peak hour)

Adding a peak hour bus is a very expensive proposition: it means (to preserve spare ratio, and other contingency)

the Purchase of an additional bus

Adding storage capacity for this bus (even if in use 20mn a day)

Adding maintenance cost

adding a driver on payroll and all ancilliairy cost (training, administration)

According to a conversation with a former Toronto Transit Commission employee, the TTC is costing an additional peak hour bus at $100,000 a year (that is for a 40footer, typically sold a ~$300,000)

It is worth to note that Translink is in very short supply of articulated trolleybus, estimated each at $1M

Revenue

It is no secret that the faster a transit service is, the more ridership it will attract. That has been again recently verified in Seattle, with a quasi linear relationship:

an increase of 20% in speed is conductive of a similar increase in the ridership, which de facto increase the bus operator revenue[1]

This coumpounded to lower operating cost makes Transit much more financially sustainable.

Conclusion

When all the effects are combined, it is relatively conservative to estimate that a bike lane, done at the expense of transit on Commerical, could end up to cost more than $1 million/year to Translink, when compared to a solution improving both

[5] We use here the hourly operating cost as stated in the 2013 Bus Service Performance Review (see Annex A): it is worth to note that this hourly operating cost doesn’t include neither bus lay over and dead end trips. It doesn’t differentiate artics buses from standard ones too: the $100 mark is a very significant under estimate of the real operating cost of a route. A $180 per customer hour service could be closer to reality as we have seen before.

[6] It seems that the average speed of the route 20 is decreasing year over year, almost 10% reduction in the last 7 years according to our spreadsheet [4] (which also depends of the Translink data quality): A probable consequence of the city council inaction on Transit front

The system control lost communication with a group of 10 switches (the one in red in the map below), defacto neutralizing Metrotown, the 2nd busiest station on the network [1], and Patterson:

The cause

Some people claim it is due to lack of funding for proper maintenance of the Skytrain system. Either they are right:

That could mean the reinsurances by both Translink and BCRT officials that they are able to keep the skytrain system in a state of good repair, were lies…proper action should be hence taken to sanction such misbehavior.

…or they are wrong: The cause is not due to a lack of funding.

Some also call for redundancy for each piece and bit of the system they see failing: If we follow this logic we could end up to have a full redundant Expo line 2!

…In fact here we don’t have enough information to dissert on the cause of the failure but we have nevertheless some questions regarding the below items:

The time to restore the system

The problem switches which don’t need to move in normal operation, but still neutralize the system on a communication failure with them (which apparently can’t be manually overriden).

The switches at both end of Metrotown monitored by the same communication device.

A different switches partition control, (Switch group East of Metrotown under a card, group west of Metrotown under another one) could have left the 2nde busiest station still open, whether a single communication control card fail.

…But here we touch to the Skytrain system design itself, for which we have already expressed concerns.

The Contingency plan

Skytrain operation

At first they have operated the Expo-Millenium line in 2 different segments Waterrfront-Nanaimo and Edmonds-King George/ VCC Clark with a shuttle train Nanaimo to Joyce (6th busiest station on the system [1]“).

The way this is operated have system wide consequence:

Frequency on any section of the system is constrained by the fact only one train is allowed on a single track section, either Commercial-Nanaimo or Edmonds Operating Center-Edmonds Station (…and only one track per station was used, as per my observation).

It is apparently for this reason, that Royal Oak was closed (too long a single track section between Edmonds and Royal Oak). Keeping Royal Oak open, could have

Drastically reduced the bus bridge length.

brought metrotown area/ in walkable distance of the skytrain for many patrons providing well needed relief to the bus bridge

It could be a better operation arrangement that the one in place on “dead end” sections (e.g Edmonds operation center-Edmonds), to enable to preserve or minimize the impact on the overall train frequency on the rest of the system:

tracks on the left side of the switches are used as 2 single tracks with a drawer to preserve good frequency on the double tracks section (right side of the switches)

Translink/BCRTC should have better Skytrain operation contengency plan, to make the best use of their system, in degraded mode.

Bus operation

The bus bridge was working relatively well – at least in the West direction around 7:30pm – but could have been improved:

Instead to have a single special bus route serving all the closed Skytrain station, what involve many street detours, when most of the rider are just interested to go to the other end, it could have been better to have 2 routes:

A non stop route (Joyce-Edmonds)

All skytrain station stop route

In addition, of it, Translink staff should advise existing alternative route – route 106 Edmonds to Metrotown was painfully underused – and beef up some other regular routes – Route 19, the obvious alternative to Skytrain was oversubscribed, but was running as per schedule (no additional buses)

Information

Passenger information could have been much better

22nd entrance station had a sign reading “All trains stop at Edmonds station”…what is true every day…

Announce of skytrain station closure should be done on buses before alighting at skytrain stations

Announce of alternative regular bus route to reach main destinations should be done both on the skytrain and the buses

We have already noticed the poor reliability of the skytrain, but on the bright side, we are noticing some slight progress in the handling of the recurring skytrain failures.

September 22, 2014

The first round of segregated bike tracks has essentially concerned non essential transit corridors (Dunsmuir, Hornby…), but it is natural for cyclists to expect similar bike facilities on the Main arterial of the city, where shopping destination are located. Not surprisingly some groups are making pressure toward it. That should be an opportunity for the various municipal candidates to offer their vision and their differentiators on a complex problem which will require significant trade-off, and priority setting. Since transit has been much neglicted by the current council, the prospect of bike lane along transit corridors become a matter of concerns for Transit advocates

Commercial street redesigned as per “Streets For For Everyone” group [3]

The main strength of this proposal is that it exists and provides a basis for discusssion. It also highlight the reason of our concerns in regard of Vancouver bike lanes: They obey to a disturbing sense of priorities:

“Our plan leaves parking intact on both sides of the street”

…The same sense of priorities which could have lead to pave Kitsilano park to save street parking. Here there is no park, but there is the very important transit route 20, which is neglicted: It is nevertheless called a “win-win-win” proposal by some bike lanes advocates for the reasons below:

mode

Improvment

Pedestrians

Cyclists

Transit Users

Car Users

Emergency Vehicles

This layout, where the bus can be hold back by left and right turning cars, as well as the occasional parking car, is obviously very detrimental to Transit:

On could expect the average speed of the bus 20, actually ~ 14km/h, to slow down to the one of the bus 5 or 6 (lower than 9km/h), which face similar street configuration (single traffic lane + parking lane). Speed is an issue, reliability is another one.

Such a slow down can have a dramatic impact

On the attractivity of Transit, defeating a purpose of a street calming effort (get more people to choose alternative mode to car)

On the operating cost of the line. so such proposal can be in be fact very costly [1].

It is hence very important to find a compromise which not only is not detrimental to Transit but can also be an opportunity to improve it:

Thought Commercial Drive is relatively narrow (80feet), it is possible to find an arrangement which improve the bike experience as well as the Transit experience:

The width of the all purpose lanes is what can be seen on most of the Vancouver residential street, such as 6th avenue (#Commerical),

It is enough to preserve a parking lane, but that means drivers must be willing to “share the street” and negociate with other drivers, as illustrated in the above rendering, on some uncommon but possible traffic case involing large vehicles

Traffic lane are ~3m wide, not unlike the traffic lanes on Number 3 road in Richmond (North of Westminster Hwy)

Narrow traffic lanes are a powerful device toward traffic calming

The bus lane on the parking lane side is “protected”, both from dooring and ill parked vehicles, while the one on the other side can be infringed (“mountable obstacle”) to allow occasional passing of large vehicle

The Bus+bike lanes are 4.5meter wide, a parisian standard [4]. Could it be possible to slighlty separate them, in a Dutch way (that is by having raised bike lane)? may be, but the preservation of a parking lane make the proposal difficult.

The bus lanes morph in emergency lane when needed

All in all:

mode

Improvment

Pedestrians

Cyclists

Transit Users

Car Users

Emergency Vehicles

The above is a suggestion fitting better the objective of the 2040 Vancouver transportation plan: It must certainly exist better layouts. A complete economic analysis of a street layout could be useful to determine the objective value of one layout vs another one [1].

This proposal, as the “Streett for everyone” one, is uncompatible with the Mayors council idea of a hierarchized (local+express) transit service on Commercial, idea proposed for the Transit referendum

Intersection treatments

“Street for every one” suggests “dutch intersections” pretty much every where:

We prefer a more traditional bike box (doubled of a “queue jumper”) on street bereft of bike lanes: A solution avoiding some unnecessary conflict, and also more friendly to pedestrians (no detour imposed around the dutch “circle”):

Bike boxes on crossing streets are used to do a left turn

[1] Here, we mention only the Transit operating cost, which could increase in the tune of million of $ due to lack of bus priority, but Transit lack of efficiency has more generalized social cost, in term of lost time,… as suggested by George Poulos on Price Tags

[3] The blue car in the rendering is a Toyota Passo, it is a sub compact car, not seen in North America. We have included the same car in our rendering along other more common model seen in the Vancouver street to provide a better idea of the width of the different lanes.